A little glass of Earl Grey, black, Earl Grey, without any sugar in it, is waking me up this morning

in my little studio that I've rented alongside the canal in Ghent. Very nice indeed. It was self-catering,

which is nice, actually. I got here early enough to sort of have time just to wander up to the

nearest supermarket. I bought a fish, which is extremely nice. I had it with some spinach and

some asparagus and cherry tomatoes and new potatoes,

which felt like that's what my body needed,

sort of packing a bit of goodness in because I'm quite tired.

I've just had to get dressed and sort of manipulate my right leg somehow into the socks because I'm quite stiff.

Anyway, for context, I'm halfway through my ride from Lewisham to Amsterdam.

Day one was from my home in Lewisham down to Calais, taking an evening ferry.

Day two yesterday was from Calais, very, very flat ride to Ghent,

crossing from France into Belgium. I'm sort of two-thirds of the way across Belgium already.

And day three today takes me the rest of the way into the Netherlands, from Ghent, through Antwerp,

across the border and finishing in the town of Breda in the Netherlands where I've never been before. So I'm looking forward to that, exploring somewhere completely new. I hope I get there early enough, and I should do, because it's not particularly long today. I don't know what I'm going to find along the way. That's been the pleasure of this, well, it's the pleasure of any journey, isn't it? But it's been the pleasure of the last couple of days.

And I hope it continues today.

Before any of that, though, I have to carry out the rather exacting and borderline annoying, rather OCD instructions that my studio hosts have left in how I must leave this apartment

otherwise. I risk the trauma of bad reviews. School rush hour in Ghent is a wonder to behold

as I make my way through these quiet streets and out of town.

There are, I mean, just such a high percentage of the population of this town, this city.

Is that on the bike this morning?

Either going to work or going to school or going about their business.

And it cuts across, across you know obviously this is

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